Youth Violence and Exposure to Gun Violence

Associations Between Youth Violence and Exposure to Gun Violence
The issue of violence in school has drawn increasing attention in recent years. Thus, the study by Forster (et al., 2015) entitled “Associations Between Gun Violence Exposure, Gang Associations, and Youth Aggression: Implications for Prevention and Intervention Programs,” appears to be a timely one, regarding the association of exposure to gun violence to aggressive actions. According to the authors, there is abundant literature showing a significant association between being victims and perpetrators of violence and gang affiliation for members of socio-economically disadvantaged youths from historically discriminated-against ethnicities. But the reasons for this remain difficult to pinpoint. There is a constellation of factors, according to the authors that give rise to this tendency.
One rational for the association is offered by by social modeling theory, arguing that by emulating family members, peers, and also the family provided by gangs, negative and aggressive behaviors are fostered. On a biological level, chronic stress may give rise to a likelihood of demonstrating greater aggression. There is also an interesting trend noting that girls have shown an increasingly greater likelihood of demonstrating aggressive behavior than they have in the past, although boys are still, statistically speaking, more likely to act in aggressive ways than their female counterparts. While boys’ aggressive behaviors are associated more with the goal of peer intimidation, girls’ violence was more apt to be associated with trauma or previous victimization.
The goal of the research was to determine the extent to which gun violence exposure in particular resulted in youth aggression. The study population was of 179 students from three low-income schools in the Los Angeles, California region. The area was predominantly African-American and Latino, and a relatively balanced ratio of males and females was used (87 male and 77 female students). For the purposes of the study, a variety of demographic factors associated with violence were subject to scrutiny, including, social associations, self-control, aggression, and neighborhood violence. All data was self-reported. This was one limitation of the study. The authors concluded: “The direct association between witnessing gun violence and past week aggression, when controlling for peer and family factors, suggests that firsthand gun violence exposure may have a unique, independent influence on an adolescent’s externalizing behaviors” (Forster, et al., 2015, par.27). However, the study also encompassed a number of additional associative factors within its framework of study, as the authors noted that they determined low self-control and gang affiliation was associated with male aggression in particular. In other words, as well as its primary focus, it also included a number of notations about what other characteristics appeared to foster violence. Despite coming from a similar social environment, not all respondents showed an equal likelihood of manifesting violence, regardless of exposure factors.
From the perspective of what constitutes appropriate topics for PhD research, the topic of study appears to be both necessary and relevant to current social issues. It develops previously existing trends identified in social science literature regarding what factors increase the likelihood of violence. The question arises if it actively expands upon previous works that have suggested associations between certain external characteristics and youth violence. The actual study design is so broad that the original stated focus on gun violence exposure is watered down to some extent, given the extensive discussion of other factors, including psychological as well as social ones, which impacted the likelihood of violence exhibited by the subjects. Still, the stated question as originally articulated is original and is amenable to scientific study, although the study design in future should be more focused to yield more useful data.

Reference
Forster, M., Grigsby, T. J., Unger, J. B., & Sussman, S. (2015). Associations between gun
violence exposure, gang associations, and youth aggression: Implications for prevention and intervention programs. Journal of Criminology.
Retrieved from: https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jcrim/2015/963750/